8:50–Find primo parking spot and head inside. There are about 3 people seated in the chapel, including the organist. Head to the stand to sit with the speakers seats with my kids (ages 6, 4, and 2) in tow. I am their only adult at church, so they are sitting with me.

8:55–Go give the interpreters the list of scriptures I plan to use in my talk.

8:57–Already thinking maybe I was crazy to have brought them up, although I have no where else for them to go. Boys are up and down, flipping their seats and roaring their dinosaurs.

9:02–Announcement made that the speakers printed in the program are not who is actually speaking today. Good for them, because they just talked two weeks ago. Already had to break out the teddy grahams.

9:10–One son on my lap, watching the Sacrament prep from a new vantage point. Wishing I was first on the program, rather than last.

9:16–Whew! Made it through the Sacrament with no major issues. Here comes the Primary President with…a birdcage? OK. We each have 20 minutes, which is a tad long for one person, in my opinion, so I guess it is good she will shake it up a little (even with contraband visual aids in Sacrament Meeting).

9:23–Wow! This is a looooong story she is reading.

9:36–My kids are getting antsy, and I am holding off until I speak before I break out the pipe cleaners for them.

9:44–Hmmmm…I wonder when she is going to be done. What can I cut out of MY talk?

9:50–The natives are restless. I had to spring the pipe cleaners.

9:52–OK, she just referenced me as “having better things to say” than she and saying she needs to wrap up.

9:57–She is still talking.

10:01–And…amen. Amen!?! They better not make me get up to speak now. Quick family musical number. Aw.

10:03–Asked to speak in two weeks instead. I can’t believe I have to drag my kids up here again.

10:05–At least we are closing on time.

10:11–Pass a virtual reception line of friends expressing outrage on my behalf. I know it is mostly on their behalf as my talk is expected to be more engaging than the one we all just sat through. We ALL wonder why the bishopric cannot manage their speakers.

Unfortunately, this has become a little bit if a regular occurrence in my ward. We have probably had about 4 accidental one-speaker Sacrament Meetings in the last year. I think this is wrong for SO MANY reasons, whether I am the bumped speaker or not. I assume the reason the bishopric does not intervene is to spare embarrassment, but I can’t really say. How does your ward manage the talkative talkers?

In our ward parents often stay seated with their families until it is time to speak (even if their spouse is at church if there is a baby).
We never have only one speaker.
Over the years I have heard many a bishopric member say that they try to cut off speakers but they sometimes don’t take the hint.

E–I will be first next time, followed by a High Council speaker. I suspect I was asked to speak second this time because they knew I can be pretty flexible to either expand or edit my talk to fill the time as needed.

That’s horrible behavior by both the Primary President and the Bishopric.

I just moved. My new chapel is horribly hot, and no one with the power to turn the AC on seems to care. My wife and I spoke last Sunday (neither of us sitting on the stand because we have a young child) and I made a joke about sweating from nervousness as soon as I entered the chapel and then looking around and realizing everyone else was sweating too (makeshift fans, etc.) and that I wasn’t sweating because I was nervous–I was sweating because it was very warm. I got a few laughs. I’m still not sure if that was the best way to handle it, and I’m not sure it will fix the problem, but…

Maybe you should ask the Primary President to watch your kids when you talk in two weeks. Poetic justice, and all that.

I guess my point above was that it can be awkward to tell the bishopric they need to change something, and I really have no clue what the best way is to do it. Sometimes, though, it just needs to be done.

I once had to squeeze a talk into the last 5 minutes, but the guilty party was my wife, who tends to ramble when she isn’t prepared. No way the bishopric was going to intervene there. In fact, I have never seen the bishopric intervene, in any ward. The harshest I have ever seen a bishopric member be was the guy who refused to allow one last person to bear her testimony when it was already 10 past the hour. (Oh wait–that was me.) Anyway, unless one of them were to sit in the front row flashing “time remaining” cards, I’m not sure how they would handle it. Telling somebody to sit down in front of the whole congregation risks losing that person forever.

Our pulpit has a red light that can be actuated from the stand. I don’t know how effective it is, but it’s been used on me, and I can think of only one occasion when the first speaker rambled on long enough to effectively kill the next two talks.

That’s happened to me so many times that in this new ward when the first time the bishop and I met he asked me to speak, I put the condition on my acceptance that this would *not* happen yet again.

There would be nothing wrong or even needlessly embarrassing for a bishopric member to stand when a speaker has gone 5 minutes over, put his arm around the speaker’s shoulder and thank him kindly for winding it up now. I doubt it would be necessary to do that a second time for a very looooong time. I don’t understand why so many can’t keep better control of meetings under their direction. (Yeah, I know, it’s really the fault of the long-winded folks who love to hear themselves speak, but it’s ultimately the responsibility of the one conducting the meeting to control it.)

I would tell the Bishopric that you are sitting in the congregation with your children until the intermediate hymn. You can then all go the stand together. I would also tell him that he they preside during Sacrament and should control what happens there when people sdpeak for longer than assigned.

eso – I meant that speakers don’t sit on the stand if they don’t want to. They just come forward when it is their turn to speak. Parents in our ward often do this. I lead the music in sac. mtg. and I only come up for the hymns and the rest of the time sit with my kids. Of course you still have to abandon them in the second row for your 20 minutes of talk, but it might be easier to ask someone to keep an eye on them for that 20 minutes if they are in the 2nd row than if they are on the stand.
I think from now on the bishopric needs to explicitly tell the first speaker when to end. It isn’t normal to have this problem more than once. It’s their job to keep this from becoming a habit. It is very inconsiderate.
We had a talent show last week. The missionaries did a cute, funny lip sync with actions. Everyone loved it! But then the kept on going. It was a play. With multiple songs. It kept going on and on. Everyone else was so considerate with making sure they weren’t monopolizing the talent show. But these missionaries kept going. Everyone kept thinking that it was going to end any minute…..but no, there would be another song. I wished I was in a position of power to ask them to end, but if I had been in charge would I have known when to tell them to stop? Ideally it would have been after the first song.

Ardis, I think you’re right. All it would take is one time and people would get the message pretty quickly. Maybe every now and then the bishopric could set up a scapegoat? I for one would be glad to “accidentally” have my talk run too long, and be “embarrassed” by the bishop when he asked me to wrap it up, if it would get people to not run over. (Heck, I’ll even volunteer to be “offended” and go inactive for a month or so ;)

I’ve seen our bishop nudge a speaker or a testimony-giver on the foot with his foot. If that doesn’t work he pulls lightly on their pant leg. If that doesn’t work he stands up and puts his hand on the shoulder of the speaker. I’ve only seen him go through this three-step process once. Usually the person gets the hint. Then again, it’s only been two or three times he’s had to nudge at all.

Part of the reason I’m saying this is that sometimes a speaker is getting a ‘nudge’ that the audience won’t see at all.

What truly drives me crazy is when a speaker, who has already been going on awhile, indicates they are going to finish and then doesn’t finish. There ought to be a very serious penalty for saying “I guess my time is about up” and then pulling out two more scriptures or sharing yet another long personal experience. That’s just mean.

Tim–she offered, I probably won’t take her up on it though because her kids are really stinkers, and I don’t want my kids to get any ideas.

Last Lemming–I agree with others that I don’t actually think it is very harsh to remind someone that their time is up. Isn’t it even more harsh to communicate to the rest of the program participants that their preparation doesn’t count or to subject the entire congregation to ONE boring loooong talk? I have seen people cut off my entire life, from standing and whispering, to placing a note on the pulpit in front of them, to the coveted red light flashing.

Peter–very jealous of that light. I only remember seeing them in several old European chapels. GREAT idea–wish it was more widespread. REALLY wish I controlled it.

ESO, that’s probably the case. New York City plots of land are very expensive, so the chapels tend to go up a number of stories (instead of sprawling out as they do in Utah). The chapels, cultural halls, basketball courts all get a bit of an adjustment (are smaller, not regulation-size) as a result.

No, I was thinking about that gender dynamic too, as I wrote the comment. I think so far the two or three longwinded speakers we’ve had have been men. I can’t remember a woman getting any signal yet and am not sure how that message would be conveyed. We’d probably have to bring out the hammer of justice. (grin)

Some people just don’t get it. It’s happened in our ward when the stake president was the concluding speaker, and he ended up with about 5 minutes. That’s like running a red light with a cop sitting in front of the traffic on the cross street. People just get lost in themselves and there is hardly anyway to rescue them.

I thought the red and yellow lights were standard chapel equipment. Maybe they were for a while. One older building I was at had them retrofitted, but I don’t see them in new buildings. Those really worked. Yellow for over time, red for “those big guys in the back walking toward the pulpit? they are coming for you!”

I can recall a General Conference talk by Legrand Richards when Spencer Kimball was President where he was going on with many missionary stories as he often did when suddenly he stopped mid sentence and said, “Does this red light mean I ought to quit?” much to the laughter of the audience. He then wrapped up about 3 minutes later.

I was just going to suggest to the author that perhaps they should ask the home teachers or visiting teachers to lend a hand with the kids. Even better if you could invite them over so they could know the kids and then they’d be able to help during sacrament meeting. It’s a great way for Home Teachers or VT to help out.

In our last stake our stake president would speak last at almost every stake conference, and he would always go over by anywhere from twenty to thirty-five minutes. Another stake conference speaker made a joke about it once while speaking. We had a good laugh–but the next stake conference the stake president went way over again. I think some people are just oblivious to how much they’re imposing on others.

I was also going to say, I remember in one ward where we had a general authority visiting to speak to us, where a real big deal was made out of it and everyone was asked to be early to hear the special message, etc. And then they scheduled three talks in front of him and he spoke for about 6 minutes. It was a little disappointing whoever assigned the talks that week didn’t think ahead. Here you have a general authority who will probably never again speak to this same group of people and a group of people who will never get to hear from him again. I imagine he had a lot to say, but instead just quickly bore his testimony.

But nobody is perfect and it was a learning experience for me that wouldn’t have been if those ‘mistakes’ weren’t made in the first place.

In our ward conference last year a member of the stake presidency got up and began to ramble for about 50 minutes. After 25 minutes of this I was pretty surprised as he was already past the time the meeting should be out, and he was clearly well past the end of his prepared remarks. Then he continued until 30 minutes after the meeting was supposed to have ended. This became increasingly uncomfortable as kids started to get very restless, the adults began to wonder what was going on, and the speaker made less and less sense. I kept wondering why the Stake President or the Bishop didn’t put a stop to it, but the longer it went on the harder it would have been for them to interrupt.

The next week the Stake President made a special visit to our ward to apologize for the his councilor and explain that he thought the meeting had started at 1pm instead of 12:30pm, and thus came to the stand thinking he had just been given an enormous amount of time to fill, when in fact he was supposed to speak for about 15 minutes.

In my old ward, the Bishopric would pass a piece of paper that said – “Time to wrap it up”. It was fairly discrete but worked wonderfully, primarily becuase the folks would feel stupid, lose their place and wrap it up.

What really use to piss me off to no end is when people use the speaking time to use gospel doctrine to support their political candidates from the pulpit. MY Home Teacher would take liberties like this all the time. Talk about issues like Immigration reform(and how we are bad Mormons for not believing the same as Glen Beck) etc. It use to drive me nuts.

This happened to my wife about five years ago, and when the counselor asked her to speak again the next week she said no. She’s horribly afraid of public speaking and had spent the prior week up at all hours worried about that fifteen minute talk. So she told him she couldn’t put herself through another week of that.

They did make an announcement a week or two later in EQ and RS thanking people for their willingness to talk in Sacrament, but to please keep their talks to the time allowed so that everyone could get to class on time without disturbing the next ward.

Bishops can and should control the speakers better. A note can be passed or an elbow can be nudged so that long-winded speakers know to wrap it up.

Not long ago in our ward a brother was speaking and was going down some kind of list that he had told us had 12 or 13 points, each of which was greatly elaborated upon. He proceeds to keep talking after the meeting should have closed. He’s on like point #5 or 6 and it’s 15 minutes past time to stop. We’re all fidgeting and watching the clock, when the bishop slips him a note. He acknowledged that it was time to wrap it up, but went on for another 10 minutes!! Guess who he was…the BISHOP’s DAD who had recently moved into the ward! :)

annegb–personally, I don’t write my talks out, so I don’t provide the interpreters with the text. I do try to give them the scripture passages in the target language, though. If I wrote out the talks, I would give them copies, but I don’t know if anyone else does–it was not requested.

It really did not occur to me to say “no” when asked to speak in a few weeks, although I do hate to have the low-grade (for me, I realize it is very anxious for many people) stress of the assignment hanging over my head.

We don’t need a word-for-word; but a list of any names with their proper spelling, quotes and scriptures are the most beneficial as this is where I usually stumbled when a name or quote was not laid out for me to read.

It’s also really hard whenever a person gives you a word-for-word copy and either A) reads so fast its impossible to keep up, B) they go off topic that you eventually just give up on reading from the talk only to return at the exact moment you forgot about the copy, or C) a not-so fine mixture of the two. So it really can be a double edged sword at times.

Having gone from a bishopric to the High Council I’ve been directly involved in both sides of this issue. I sympathize with the bishopric because it’s not always obvious how far along they are in their talk. It’s a very public embarrassment to be told your time is up in front of everyone, which, as a member of a bishopric, is the last thing you want to do to your fellow members. We would often have to cut people off, which we usually did with a little nudge or a piece of paper.

But on the other hand, as a member of the High Council we are mandated to build flexibility into our talks for this very reason. We’re supposed to have 15 minutes, which the Stake President constantly stresses to the bishops, but rarely have I had that much time. Usually I get less, some others often get more. A couple months ago in the YSA branch the speaker left me about 4 minutes. Rather than squishing my talk into 4 minutes I just offered to come back the following month. It wouldn’t have bugged me so much if the talk that took up all the time wasn’t so inane and nonsensical. But really, I didn’t mind it so much because it meant I didn’t have to write a new talk the following month.

The problem will always be with us, though. We’re a lay membership, there will always be a percentage of our speakers who don’t know what they’re doing and won’t practice/time it beforehand. And there will always be a percentage of our bishoprics that are (perhaps overly-) sensitive to the embarrassment of the speakers.

Here’s a question then: if we all (or nearly all) get a chance to talk every year or so why don’t we take it more seriously? Why do we settle for “inane and nonsensical” talks. I’m not talking just about length. Delivery and content are often abysmal. The meeting that is the highlight of our weekly worship is frequently terrible. Why do we do that to ourselves each week?

As part of being a lay membership we are doomed to the “insane and nonsensical” for the following reasons:

1) As you’ve stated, we each have the opportunity to speak roughly once a year. This means no one ever develops the comfort that those who speak every Sunday do in regards to the microphone, stand, and audience.

2) Since no one is paid, no one is educated or properly taught in public speaking. Those who attend “bible schools” to land a paying ministry line of employment have numerous (not just that one prerequisite) classes that help perfect their ability to engage an audience.

3) No one agrees 100% with all things church-related. Plus, giving talks are usually our only form of contact with the entire ward (and likely the only way the bishopric gets to know a lot of the members); so rather than risk spreading false doctrine, and have leaders questioning your understanding, it’s easier to share stories about family that really have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

4) At least in my ward (if it does not apply to yours feel free to disregard it), the poorest speakers are frequently those with children in the home. Usually there is a correlation between ages of said children, and the quality of message shared.

I have seen this happen to a member of the Stake Presidency who came from more than 1 hour away. There is a reason that the Bishop is sitting right behind the speaker. All speakers should be prepared by the bishopric before the meeting about length and content to some extent.